These are just thoughts to get the gears turning and start narrowing our thoughts. As we collect and develop information, each of these bullet points (and any others we add) will probably end up heading individual pages.
- What type of school are we going to use for our project? Public vs. private? Elementary, Middle, High? RSE--My preference would be a public middle school or high school. VTJ - I also prefer public school grades 6-8 or high school if it avoids unnecessary confusion with Amelia's project. ECB - My preference is a public middle school or intermediate school.
- Are we focusing on a specific age group or grade?
- What type of reading program is this? A challenge program (principal will dance on the roof of the school if 5,000 books are read by end of year)? Incentive program (students can earn prizes -such as homework passes, free ice cream vouchers for the cafeteria, etc) for achieving benchmarks throughout the year? Any other thoughts? VTJ -- I'd like to do an SSR program over a Quarter-long grading period, repeated. Do it in the Second Quarter and REPEAT it in the Fourth Quarter of the year to beat 2nd quarter numbers and get heading into the summer with enthusiasm for reading full-steam. I don't think we want it counted by books read -- rather by pages read. I also will state a preference for individual incentives over challenges related to classes or grade levels. You all know I dislike candy/junk food-type rewards. ECB - I agree that an SSR program is an excellent idea. I think that there should be structured reading during classroom time as well as individual reading time at the end of library classes plus encouraging reading at home/during personal time. I was thinking that doing individual incentives would encourage the students to engage their competitiveness amongst each other and therefore keep the steam going; we could start small, like if you've read 50 pages you earn X award OR the awards could be cumulative, you've read 150 pages, you can earn all three 50 page awards or the student can choose to cash in those 'points' for a different, larger/better award. You may not like the free ice cream voucher, Valerie, but I went to a school where many children could not afford the occasional ice cream sandwich... I liked Valerie's idea of the Fired Up for Reading; perhaps we could bring in various community leaders (police, school board, news personalities, etc) throughout the year as a sort of local celebrity READ program (you know those posters in libraries). RSE--I agree with Elise on the ice cream. Cheap as well as a crowd pleaser, it's easy to distribute and loved by the kids. Another level or option could be "anywhere seating" in the cafeteria. This is a HUGE enticement at my daughter's middle school. They are required to sit by homeroom, and all they really want is to have some unstructured time with friends. They're starving for it. It costs nothing and most of them love it. VTJ - I would rather do the unstructured time at lunch than the ice cream -- and I'm sticking to my guns on this. We have a national obesity issue and the school lunch program is a huge culprit. In addition to Congress' work on this issue, I KNOW that the US Dept of Agriculture is working really hard to change the guidelines for school lunches in the very near future. ECB - Would like to see a school-wide kick off pep rally/assembly (sports have pep rallies, why not the library?) as well as progress lunches with the principal (one of the prizes could be that students who reach a certain level get to have a special catered lunch with the principal and librarian, sort of a book discussion club) and of course some sort of a final celebration at the end of the year. Maybe we could somehow combine Valerie's Fired Up for Reading and the kick off pep rally :-)
- Duration of the program? Time line for events?
- Budget? ECB - Where is our funding coming from? I think that grant funding as the majority of monies would be most plausible with some monies contributed by the PTA/O and finally a minimum of local commercial sponsors.
- Who will be involved? Donors? Parent volunteers? School Administration? PTA? VTJ -- total school involvement, including the administration. We'll need some local business donors for prizes. We might need parent volunteers for set-up of tangential events and, of course, parents encouraging reading at home. ALSO, although more typically seen at the elementary level we might consider a Family Literacy Night.
- What sort of materials will we need? Moved Rebekah's comments to the Marketing Ideas page on 1 Nov 2010 (ECB).